


Fragments

by shadoedseptmbr



Series: Tales from the Shelterverse [9]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-01-03 16:13:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadoedseptmbr/pseuds/shadoedseptmbr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scenes from a Love Story, Shelter Act II</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. gymnphoria

**Author's Note:**

> From the glossolalia writing meme I did on tumblr, a couple of drabbles set in Act II for Sebastian and Aeryn Hawke. I will, in all likelihood, try to incorporate these into Shelter at some point, but for now, they belong in the Tales. Gymnphoria is the feeling of being undressed by another's eyes.

He wasn’t so out of practice that he couldn’t recall that particular intrusive feeling. He’d bent to pick up one of his arrows - fletching took too long to let one lie- when he felt eyes on him. Sebastian glanced back to find the pirate eyeing the curve of his flank with some speculation in the sparkle of her eyes. He ignored it, deciding that chastity must keep him from teasing her about it and that a reasonable dose of humor meant he couldn’t chide her. 

It didn’t surprise him, once he thought about it, that not saying anything was tantamount to encouraging Isabela. Sly glances, openly appraising eyes and the occasional appreciative hmm came into play more often and once, she outright asked. “Just once. Take the damned mail off just once.” He’d grinned at her and claimed to be a little chilly so far south of his homeland. Hawke had rolled her eyes and dragged the pirate off to some better pursuit, with nary a glance back. 

Anders…now, Anders had surprised him. The mage’s unsubtle…fascination was the kind word… with Hawke had distracted Sebastian from any other interests the man might have had before. 

Instead of hanging back to cover point as he often did, Sebastian had been forward with Hawke discussing the items they were looking for and the possibility of traps left by the Tal Va Shoth that had been cleared out earlier, before he’d joined up. He’d felt as though he was being watched and put it down to paranoia, lingering spirits. Perhaps the nest of spiders they’d disturbed. It wasn’t until Sebastian had boosted Merrill up to a ledge that he’d been startled to half catch Anders’ hazel eyes on his midriff, where the mail had pulled taut across his belly as he reached and then resettled with a sighing clink. The mage had glanced guiltily away and then made a nasty comment about the face of Andraste on his belt buckle. 

And then there was Hawke. After that first openly appraising comment, she’d kept her eyes to herself. Allowed him his privacy, his…distance. For the most part. Sometimes, though, at the Hanged Man after a round or two he’d caught her looking at his hands, wondering what they looked like without his gloves. At the way his mail folded over his belt. At the way leather stretched across his thigh. 

Maker help him, it was hard not to try and create opportunities for her to look. 

But the simple fact was that on the rare occasions that she held his gaze, those pale eyes could strip him bare to his soul. Neither leather nor enameled plate could withstand the raw intensity in her regard. She laid him bare, held him up to whatever rule she measured by, seemed to see every crack in his armor.  
And, inevitably, turned away to grant him back his solitary piety.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mamihlapinatapei- The look between two people in which each loves the other but is too afraid to make the first move.

It's a rare night in the Hanged Man, when all of Hawke's crew can gather and play a game or two. These last few months have seen them scattered. Varric trying to deal with the mess that his brother left of the family records, Merrill holed up in her hovel fiddling with that mirror, Anders elbow deep in the Underground and looking more haggard by the day. 

Tonight, even Sebastian is here, though he comes in late from evening prayers. Aeryn can't help but watch him from under her lashes; the tall, upright figure he cuts gleaming in the gloom of the tavern's fug of smoke and steam from the kitchen. 

He has, in the last months he's been working with them, shown a fondness for routine, her archer. No, not her archer. That fondness comes from a decade and more of day in day out of ritual in his Chantry. Never her archer.

But, she knows his path so well, she could recite his movement with her eyes closed. But she won't close her eyes. She's always been greedy.

Aeryn knows Sebastian will order a half-pint and that he will sit down beside Fenris and across from Merrill and smile at Isabela and lift two long fingers to ask Varric to deal him in and ignore Anders at the other end of the table beyond a very polite nod, his way of attempting to keep things civil between them.

That he will bet -daringly- for a man who has spent ten years cloistered away. Aeryn worried the first few times and privately persuaded Varric not to encourage Sebastian’s recklessness but after a sour look from the dwarf, who had gotten bluffed with neat skill, that hadn’t lasted long. Sebastian is daring but not so much so that she needs to rein him in. And, she reminds herself, it’s not her place. She also knows that a very disciplined three quarters of his take will drop into the box at the Chantry, and half of what he keeps will find its way into the hands of the women and small folk they pass in Darktown.

She knows that if she drinks more than three pints he will glance worriedly down the table and if she doesn’t eat anything that he will eventually offer to order something. She knows that if she drifts through the crowd his eyes will follow her even if she lights at the bar and downs a shot or two. Even if she danced with the merc over there with the scar across his cheekbone under golden brown eyes. But she won’t. The worry would be there and the resignation and the resignation is so much worse.

She *knows* him. But nothing is worth losing the quiet balance they’ve found. In all of Kirkwall, if she lost him…well. So she keeps her eyes and her hands to herself and tries to appreciate presence and gentle warmth, for once in her life.

Aeryn is on her third pint and Sebastian can tell she’s trying to pace out the last one to finish the evening. She’s fed everyone at table, but she hasn’t eaten a bite, herself. She’s not gambling tonight, hasn’t been chivvied into the game and last night’s skirmish with bandits isn’t enough to burn off the energy he can see buzzing under her skin. It wouldn’t surprise him at all to see her dancing with one of the mercs across the room, that one with brown eyes has been eyeing her lithe figure all night as she waltzes between Varric’s suite and the bar. He can’t say anything. He hasn’t the right. Not even to wish it was him. 

She doesn’t leave him behind though, just leans over Merrill’s shoulder and whispers a suggestion into the elf’s pointed ear, winning her the hand and earning a grumble from the rest of the table and a delighted laugh from Merrill, sparking that true smile of Aeryn's, the one that flashes the dimple in her cheek and Sebastian can’t help himself, staring greedily. It’s gone in a moment and he sighs, ashamed of his weakness. A boot bumps his knee and Isabela slides him a smirk as her foot finds its intended resting spot on Fenris’ lap. Sebastian isn’t fooling the pirate at all and he is grateful enough for the distraction.

And then Aeryn neatly steps up on the bench beside him, and sits down in a graceful sort of slide, slipping his halfpint a little closer to his hand.

He can’t help but stare, when the soot-stained lashes brush her cheeks shyly and then flash wide.

She wants to ask him if it’s alright…that she sits beside him, that she just wanted to feel close to him for once, to catch the scent of fir soap under the incense that clings to him. But she’s not quite that pathetic. Not quite.

He would like to move closer, wishes he dared to touch her cheek, brush his thumb along her scarred knuckles, anything, but he’s well aware that he won’t impinge on the careful distance she cultivates. For once, her eyes are soft and clear; all their sharpness and pale intent fled and he relaxes, smiles. Treasures this glimpse.

She can’t. Honestly. So ingrained the habit of not touching him has become that she simply cannot. But, for just a moment, she can bathe in all the soothing heat of that blue gaze, like one of Isabela’s tales of tropical oceans.

Any second, Aveline will burst into the suite to tell Hawke she needs a hand with another gang of over-reaching thugs in Hightown and all the softness will be gone again, like a bit of smoke from a snuffed candle. But he’ll have this one moment to remember, to set like a jewel in the string of rare times that they seem to come to accord.


	3. kin of the moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The prompt was Sebastian and cats.

There were cats in the Keep at Starkhaven when he was a boy. Long, slinky, elegant, pad-footed creatures. Cream and tan and black-tailed with eyes brilliant and green. Sebastian climbed his first tree chasing the one Cook kept in the kitchen. He watched another walk a roof-ridge and couldn’t sleep until he’d tried it for himself. He only fell off once...well, twice, before he got the hang of it, realized that bare feet were best for gripping.

There were cats in all the taverns and brothels he ever found himself in; creeping, yowling scroungers only just managing to hold onto their elegance as they fed on scraps and the wine-soaked rats that plagued the alehouses.

There was a fat, orange lazy cat called Snug in the kitchen at the Chantry, fed on suet and bacon rind and the cream skimmed from the milk during fasts. It sometimes wrapped itself around his feet when Sebastian helped to knead the bread to hand to beggars and refugees. He took to watching Snug while he weeded the garden, when the cat would take the sun. It walked a meandering path, pawing at this and that and rolling in the thick grass at the edge of the wall, fluffy white belly flashed to the wide blue sky.

A shadow fluttering across the grass had Snug to his feet and low in the grass and Sebastian watched him stalk the small sparrow to the small feeder one of the sisters had set up to draw the songbirds.  
The bird caught the movement in plenty of time and, in a whirl of brown feathers, alit even as Snug tried a leap. Ungainly and far too late, the cat didn’t even manage to land on his feet, collapsing on his back again and having to roll to his feet, twisting, white belly all afluff. 

Sebastian turned away from the poor creature, though he pulled a thorn from a furry paw later in the kitchen and poured a wee bowl of warmed milk to sooth its lost pride. 

After the Fereldan refugees began to arrive, clogging first the dockside then the dank warrens of Darktown and spilling into the Chantry in worship and need, Sebastian saw fewer cats on Kirkwall streets and didn't realize why until Sister Esme shuddered over a recollection of a Darktown stewpot filled with tiny naked claws and bare rattails. The cats were too much competition for meat. He almost forgot the way they’d walk the stone fences shielding the villas of Hightown from the eyes of the curious peasantry, sinuous tails arched over their backs, sure footed grace personified.

He almost forgot until one night, he returned to the Chantry from a late vigil near the bed of an old patron. He wasn't sure what caught his eye, for the women he spied were skilled and quiet in their pursuit. He recognized Hawke first; her leathers blending dark against darker stone but her hair ablaze in the moonlight and then the pirate woman with whom she prowled the Lowtown streets, flashier in white and skin and gold. They were up high above his head on a narrow ledge decorating the DeLauncey estate. He knew that ledge, less than the width of a brick, but they stepped swiftly, confident as if it was the same flagged path beneath his own booted feet. Hawke swung herself up to a window frame and up again until she balanced on a copper gutter only to walk backward, pointing something in the sky out to her companion who joined her easily. 

The little redhaired mercenary disappeared suddenly without so much as a shout. He was holding his breath as the pirate dropped down to a lower roof and the women vanished, leaving him behind and reminded suddenly of the cream and sable cats of his youth and the days long past when he thought he might be like them.


End file.
